[Wikia-l] Skin content area screenshots

[Laurence Parry]

I thought I'd do another comparison of the skins on the basis of content 
area, having had a good hack at trying to increase the area of Quartz 
without totally compromising the look (see my previous post).

I appreciate it's hard to represent the problem with content space loss 
textually, so I'll try it visually. All these were taken at 1024x768, by far 
the most popular resolution. Full notes are on the image pages.

Initial monobook:
http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/Image:WikiFurSkinCompare1-monobook.jpg

Slate (obsolete as of yesterday, but here it is for posterity):
http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/Image:WikiFurSkinCompare2-slate.jpg

Quartz Slate:
http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/Image:WikiFurSkinCompare3-quartzslate.jpg

Quartz Slate with some CSS modifications:
http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/Image:WikiFurSkinCompare4-quartzslatemodified.jpg
(One of the modifications that doesn't show up there is shifting the first 
<h1> up, this gains a whole line.)

And, as a bonus option, for logged-in users:
http://furry.wikia.com/wiki/Image:WikiFurSkinCompare5-quartzslateonecolumnnoscroll.jpg

Ignoring the single-column test, it's getting better at the end; there's no 
denying the new skins have measurably improved on the initial attempt in 
almost every way. Still, they pale in comparison with Monobook. There's a 
whole five lines of content that are just gone - on every page on that wiki. 
That means more scrolling for editors viewing the edit box and preview 
button, as well as more scrolling for readers.

Content width is also better than it was, but still down 33px with Quartz 
(or 12px in the modified version - do you _really_ need that padding?).

True, the skin can be changed by logged-in users - but that's a miniscule 
number compared to readers, and we all know people will tend to stick with 
the site defaults unless they're explicitly told otherwise. This has already 
led to a German admin of one of the new gaming wikis which was stuck with 
Smoke doing just that. I predict more of that if imposed on existing sites. 
I guess it's one way of getting new users, but not a good one.

To sum up: it all looks very nice, but it still gets in the way of actually 
using the site and viewing its content. How much? Hard to tell, but there's 
a certain number of people who just won't scroll if they don't see something 
interesting when they drop onto a page, and the chance of that increases 
with Quartz. They're likely to be focused on the content they were attracted 
to in the first place, not on the fancy new widget that shows them who 
edited recently.

Ironically, the one thing that *is* front and center is a big grey area 
between the links next to the site logo and the Wikia logo. That doesn't 
seem quite right. Maybe it needs an ad there . . .

==Coming to a screen near you - The Wikihundred==

GreenReaper: "Reduced content area? No admin skin default tool? This is 
madness!"
Staff: "This is Wikia!" *kicks GreenReaper into the pit of broken style 
sheets*

:-)

-- 
Laurence "GreenReaper" Parry
http://greenreaper.co.uk/ - http://wikifur.com/
"Eternity lies ahead of us, and behind. Have you drunk your fill?"